Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration and Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this matter of public importance. The government today has failed miserably to come into this parliament and the Senate to explain the special deals that have been offered to the asylum seekers on the Oceanic Viking. The government and the Prime Minister have told us that there were no special deals, yet we have seen reports of a written offer. We have heard from Indonesian officials that the people on the vessel have been offered fast-track access to Australia—much faster than they would have been promised or entitled to even if they had gone to Christmas Island itself.

The minister was today asked to table that correspondence. I have sought to find this on the immigration website. I have found a report of it and I would like to take the Senate through this letter which Minister Evans purports to say is not a special deal. This is indeed a special deal. I speak from having spent many years working as a government lawyer and doing my fair share of immigration law. This looks pretty special to me. One only has to look at this headline in the Herald Sun of Saturday, 14 November. It says: ‘Deal to get Sri Lankans off customs vessel: quickie visa for Tamils’. Doesn’t that summarise what this is really all about?

Why have we had this deal? Because the Prime Minister wants to save face. This has been an absolute shemozzle from day one, and now he desperately has to get them off the boat. He has repeatedly said that they are not going to come to Christmas Island. They are going to end up coming to Australia anyway, because one only has to look at this letter to see what this is really about. Let us look at the conditions in the report dated 12 November. It says:

If UNHCR has found you to be a refugee—Australian officials will assist you to be resettled within four to six weeks from the time you disembark the vessel.

There are millions of people who have been found to be refugees under the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and they are sitting there languishing—but not this lot; not this group of people who have held an Australian ship to ransom, effectively, at the cost of approximately $75,000 a day. They have stood their ground and they have got a special deal. This is the special deal that they are getting:

If you have already registered with UNHCR—Australian officials will assist with your UNHCR processing. If you are found to be a refugee, you will be resettled within 12 weeks from the time you disembark.

The minister comes in here and tells us, ‘Of course, with most people being registered the times vary.’ Of course it varies because sometimes it takes years and years and years. But because this group of people have acted in the way that they have acted and have been shown queue jumping in the most extreme of circumstances, they are going to be rewarded by being fast tracked on special circumstances to come to Australia. Then this letter tells us about special English classes, contact with families—and the list goes on in relation to the assistance that they will be given. What does that tell us? What does that say to the industry that is out there about people smuggling and more generally about the impression that Australia has softened its immigration system? Immigration is about order and process. This demonstrates that order and process as far as this government’s immigration policies and its border protection policies have monumentally failed.

Julia Gillard said years ago that one boat was one policy failure. This is an astronomical policy failure. Effectively, this is the welcome: ‘Come on down to Australia! K Rudd will look after you. Come on down!’ What does that tell you? That whole thing will permeate through what is now the immigration industry. And, yes, this government will seek to confine its changes to border protection and say it is only about boats. It is not about boats. This government has effectively dismantled the framework of immigration and border protection that was put in place by the Howard government over a number of years and now it has systematically gone through its department, through program after program after program. It has made a change here, a change there. What is the cumulative effect of all these changes? The cumulative effect of all these changes is to tell the world that Australia’s immigration policies have been softened. This will not only affect the impression about our policies for unauthorised boat rivals but also give that impression for all arrivals and in particular for those people who may come to Australia on a valid visa and may then seek to claim asylum because of the changes that this government has made, the cumulative effect of which it fails to admit. It will permeate through that, so we are going to see increases in the number of people who are going to be claiming asylum right across the spectrum because of these changes. But, of course, this government goes on.

People smuggling is really a business. What the people smugglers are selling is a product, and that product is permanent residency in Australia. If you get yourself in, you will get permanent residency. And with that permanent residency go a whole lot of other things, including family reunion. This country is a country that has been built by the work of migrants. I myself am the daughter of migrants to this country. But my parents and millions of other people came in through the front door, and that is the important thing about order and process in immigration. Australians are fair, but they do not accept queue jumping and this is what we are seeing. In the end, what this government, what K Rudd, has done is make that product—